The Gory Animated Movie Ending That Lingers Viewers
Among every adult-oriented animated films I’ve personally viewed, no other has stuck with me quite like the fear-filled ending of the viscerally violent and deeply subversive 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
In 2015’s, this Spain-based writer-director developed a dark, bleak , often savage world that included a few small , desolate twinges of hope.
While Unicorn Wars feels like it originated from a desire to expand animation even more, the filmmaker stated that it was more an effort to express a universal, cross-cultural theme concerning “the common origin of all wars.”
That message is communicated by means of a squad of vividly colored bears , obviously modeled after a well-known series of lovable characters.
Being raised in a society focused on warmongering as well as the defense industry, a lot of these creatures are fixated on slaughtering the mythical beasts, due to a religious scripture that claims them they previously were kings of the woodland, before the horned beings expelled them.
Some haven’t fully fallen for the indoctrination, and would rather sample narcotics or engage sexually outdoors.
Unlike their gentle equivalents, these bright beings show sexual organs and clear libidos.
For one particularly cruel, cynical bear, the bear named Bluey, the war with the unicorns transforms into a road to power — and particularly to supremacy above his more tender, more compassionate sibling Tubby.
The character behaves aggressively and an apparent antisocial figure , and while fear takes over his squad and claims his fellow soldiers sequentially, he takes more and more power for himself, through ever more violent, destructive ways.
Meanwhile, the horned creatures are enduring their own horror, through a spreading, harmful creature in their forest.
“In the early stages, it seems like a humorous movie,” the director said. “But then it becomes a more serious and sorrowful film. And in the finale, it transforms into a horror film.”
The Unicorn Wars starts out feeling a bit like one of the most whimsical features by a renowned animator, that uncover a naughty glee in permitting animated figures curse, engage in violence, or engage sexually.
Subsequently it evolves into something more like a more grim work by that same artist, featuring progressively visual gore and a tangible connection to the real suffering of conflict.
By the end, it’s an outright extreme drama bloodbath.
The fear which makes the film an ideal spooky-season movie starts much sooner than that description suggests.
The Unicorn Wars is ideal for the devoted fans of gore, for enthusiasts of intense movies who want to view something they’ve never seen on-screen before, and are able to withstand a narrative that pulls absolutely no punches.
View it in a dimly lit space without any distractions, and that ending will burrow under your skin and stay with you.
Where to watch: Accessible via streaming or buying on multiple online services.
